Addiction
by Mirriam Q Webster
Summary: Just a ficlet dealing with the dangers of addiction to fanfiction. Intended to amuse. COMPLETE


Disclaimer: Mmmmm...Nope, not mine.  
  
A/N: Nope, sorry this isn't HP&tLS either. But the next thing I post will be. I promise.  
  
It was often said that Hermione Granger was the brightest witch of her generation, which was true. It was also sometimes said that she was the only student at Hogwarts that wasn't a complete dunderhead, which was not true. There were several students who were quite intelligent, but not all of them wanted to spend every waking hour studying. Not all of them even wanted to spend most of their waking hours studying. In fact, most of them wanted to spend their waking hours with a book, particularly not on a day when they could be flying, or as flying usually led to, playing a friendly game of Quidditch.  
  
Diana Grace was the exception. It wasn't really that she spent her time studying, as Granger did, she did enough to get by but not to give Hermione any worries over her class rank, so much that Diana loved to read. More particularly, she loved to read fiction. Other subjects interested her, but given the option she invariably chose the imagined and created.  
  
Also unlike Granger, Diana had been sorted into Slytherin House. It was, many of the faculty considered, an odd sorting. Grace did not display many of the characteristics considered typical of Salazar's house. She behaved in an honest, compassionate manner, and had yet to pick a fight with anyone, a feat few of her housemates could boast. In fact, Miss Grace was a singularly quiet girl who could be counted on to hand in homework and fairly decent essays on time. Certainly her head of house had had few problems with the girl. Truthfully he had only a vague idea of who she was. Most of what he knew about her was gleaned from her Potions class assignments.  
  
It was with some surprise, therefore, that he heard Pansy Parkinson and Millicent Bulstrode bitterly complaining about her one morning in the Great Hall.  
  
"Honestly!" Bulstrode exclaimed, rolling her eyes. "If she doesn't want to sleep the least she could do is go somewhere else so the rest of us can get some rest!"  
  
"I know!" Parkinson agreed, nervously looking into the mirror of a small compact. "Some of us need our beauty sleep."  
  
"No kidding," the larger girl muttered under her breath. Suddenly she elbowed her preening companion in the ribs and nodded towards the doors with narrowed eyes.  
  
"Look, here she comes!" she hissed.  
  
"At least she has circles under her eyes," Parkinson whispered maliciously.  
  
Looking up at the entering student Snape noticed that she did indeed have faint smudges under her eyes, but she seemed otherwise as alert and cheerful as any of the other students present at breakfast that morning. He continued watching as Grace seated herself across from Millicent and Pansy at the house table. When nothing seemed to happen, Snape stopped watching and, a few moments later, slipped largely unnoticed out of the Grate Hall and down to the dungeons.  
  
When he strode into Potions class, sixth year Slytherin and Gryffindor, of course, later that same morning he once again glanced carefully at Diana Grace. She looked a little drawn, but then so did most of the students. He decided he would keep an eye on her, unobtrusively of course; it wouldn't do for anyone to think he had gone soft.  
  
Unfortunately, and fortunately, the next class he taught with Miss Grace in it was not until Friday. He did not often attend meals in the Great Hall, so it was unlikely that he would see her until then. Granted he was slightly concerned, but definitely not enough to subject himself to noise and self-involved chaos that was a meal with the rest of the school.  
  
Thursday morning Snape decided that he would once again attend breakfast. Not only would it satisfy Albus, it would afford him an opportunity to observe the Misses Grace, Parkinson, and Bulstrode. When he stalked up to the Staff Table and settled himself sullenly into his accustomed chair near the end of the table he noticed that once again Pansy and Millicent had beat Diana to the meal.  
  
"Merlin! Can you believe she still hasn't gone to bed at a decent hour?" Pansy whispered to her neighbor.  
  
"I know," Millicent replied. "I don't get it. She stays up later than us, gets up earlier, does her homework, and still manages to keep going."  
  
"You'd think that since she gets up when she does she would get to the Great Hall on time. And that she'd put on makeup!" Millicent just grunted in reply, reaching for a plate of toast. "Millie!" shrieked Pansy. "You can't have toast! It's loaded with carbohydrates!" Parkinson's eyes were wide with horror.  
  
"Oh, bugger off," Bulstrode growled. "I like toast, besides not all of us feel the need to diet constantly."  
  
Pansy sniffed contemptuously and turned to Draco Malfoy, who had just seated himself next to her, "Ah, good morning, Draco," she drawled slowly, flirtatiously. "How are you this morning?" she asked sweetly.  
  
"Fine," he said shortly, turning his attention to his meal and away from the girl beside him.  
  
At that moment Diana walked up to the Slytherin House table. She had darker circles under her eyes and walked slightly more slowly than she had on Monday, but she seemed to be alright. She looks, thought Snape, as thought she has suffered nothing worse than a restless night. I wonder if she simply suffers from insomnia? Or if she is plagued by nightmares like so many of her housemates? He realized once again that he knew virtually nothing about her. He also realized that he was, very slightly, intrigued by her behavior. Most teens loved sleep and wouldn't give it up for anything. What made her different? It was a puzzle which his sharp mind could not completely ignore.  
  
"Hello, all," Diana said as she sat. "Sleep well?"  
  
"You know perfectly well," Pansy said in an icy voice, glaring. "How can we sleep with you up all night on that dratted condupter?" she hissed.  
  
"That's 'computer,' Pansy, as you'd know if you bothered to pay any attention in Muggle Studies. And if it I was bothering you that much, you should have said something. Though I noticed you snored loud enough last night," Diana retorted quickly.  
  
"You snore, Pansy?" Gregory Goyle exclaimed loudly before dissolving, along with his friend Vincent Crabbe, into loud guffaws.  
  
"I do not!" she protested, coloring.  
  
"If you react that way, I think you do," Draco drawled, delighting in the discomfort of his pureblooded housemate.  
  
"I do not snore," Pansy said haughtily as she rose from the table. "It most have been your severely sleep deprived imagination.  
  
Diana shrugged. "Perhaps. At any rate we should be getting ready for Transfiguration. I doubt McGonagall will be lenient if we are tardy." At these words the others began hastily swallowing last bits of bacon and toast and washing the crumbs down with pumpkin juice.  
  
Interesting, Snape thought to himself. She deflects attention from herself easily. I confess to having wondered whether or not Grace had actually belonged in Slytherin, along with most of the staff, he was forced to admit. But the ability to slither out of any conversation and put another on the defensive in the same stroke was definitely a Slytherin quality. Finishing the rest of his coffee, Snape rose and stalked off to his own first class of the day.  
  
The day passed quickly, but still seemed far too slow, as Fridays are wont to do. Roughly fifty points were taken off Gryffindor during the sixth year Potions class. Interestingly enough, ten of them were taken during the Hufflepuff-Ravenclaw session. Miss Grace worked in a calm and controlled manner on the sleeping draught. Her bench mate, Pansy Parkinson, was rather more inclined to glare at Diana than t pay much attention to her own cauldron, a circumstance which caused the Potions Master a few moments of uneasiness and the Gryffindors even more points.  
  
The weekend promised to be fair and many were looking forward to flying, picnicking, and impromptu Quidditch matches. Severus Snape made rather more effort to leave is own chambers than usual, much to the chagrin of the student body; try as he might, however, he never saw the student he was unconsciously searching for.  
  
Monday saw Miss Diana Grace looking better rested but by the following Friday she once again had circles under her eyes. The cycle continued for a month and a half. Her dorm mates kept complaining, but seemed to become more or less resigned to the disturbance. Snape was prepared to forget the whole thing until Miss Grace didn't show up for class one day. On his free period, Severus made his way to the sixth year girl's dormitory for Slytherin. Was the girl ill, he wondered.  
  
When he eased the door open and walked quietly inside he found Miss Grace asleep in bed. She didn't appear to have a fever or any trouble breathing. Cautiously he reached out and shook her shoulder. She woke after a moment, looking around confusedly. "Professor?" she inquired with a slight frown.  
  
"Miss Grace, are you ill?"  
  
"No," she replied. "Why do you-oh!" she gasped as she caught sight of the clock beside her bed.  
  
"Then perhaps you wouldn't mind explaining to me why you are still in bed?" her head of house inquired sternly.  
  
"I must have slept through the alarm," she mumbled in embarrassment.  
  
"And why is that?" Diana was quiet a long time but a "Miss Grace," produced an answer.  
  
"I haven't been getting much sleep lately." Snape was going to kill her; she knew it.  
  
"And why is that?" he asked again.  
  
"I've been doing other things instead." She examined her coverlet closely.  
  
"What things?" he pressed her.  
  
"Reading," she said shortly.  
  
"Reading what?" Why was questioning another Slytherin always like pulling teeth?  
  
She sighed and reached under her bed. "This," she said, pulling out a strange contraption. She opened the lid of what looked like a ridiculously shallow box to reveal words printed on the inside of it and buttons with assorted letters on them.  
  
"What is this?" he asked, confusion narrowing his eyes.  
  
"A laptop; my aunt gave it to me," she replied matter-of-factly.  
  
"And you are reading..." he trailed off expectantly.  
  
"Fan fiction."  
  
He raised an eyebrow. "You mean to tell me that you've been exhausting yourself reading fiction." She nodded. "I will take five points from Slytherin House if you skip my class again. And I will take points from your Potions grade if you do not get at least six hours of sleep every night. I will not hesitate to be certain that you are following this rule, Miss Grace. Do you understand?" There was defiance in her eyes, but she replied in the affirmative. "Very well." He stood and was halfway out the door when he turned and said, "You have detention tonight."  
  
"Yes sir," she nodded again.  
  
"Bring your laptop," he said with a faint smile. "Perhaps a better understanding of how hard your professors work will cure you of your desire to cut class and waste their labor."  
  
"Yes sir," she said with a grin as he left. She stretched and began to rise, then smiled. Why waste perfectly good reading time? She opened the laptop again and clicked a few times before settling into another magical world. 


End file.
